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Question of the Day: What's the most interesting small town you've visited in South Africa?
Solar energy at US$1 per watt
- Thread starter Syndyre
- Start date
Yeah anything to get away from Eishkom
Exactly.
Advantage of this is you can run it all day anyway, not just when the power's out.
F
Fudzy
Guest
And you can power a kettle and a low-energy bulb for half a day ... if you're lucky.
F
Fudzy
Guest
IIRC, a kWh is about 0.50c, depending on where you stay.
Is that american cents or South African?
Coz if it is SA then it is about 0.0005 cents per watt. Or is my math off?
F
Fudzy
Guest
Zar0.50 
mancombseepgood
Executive Member
Question is.. how many kWh does a panel push out per day / year.... that's where you get to understand the true cost / saving
F
Fudzy
Guest
Very little, like 1 kWh a day.
Koos Custodiet
Expert Member
>Very little, like 1 kWh a day.
*coff*
Go read up on what a kWh is...
*coff*
Go read up on what a kWh is...
F
Fudzy
Guest
I know it's a unit used to measure energy consumption???
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photovoltaic_array said:
Koos Custodiet
Expert Member
A kilowatt hour is one kilowatt for one hour.
Something that supplies one kilowatt, if left on all day, will supply 24 kilowatt hours.
The writer of the Wiki is either confused or trying to make things sound better than they are, probably the latter. It's like saying your car can drive 200 kilometers per hour in a day, if what is actually the case is that you can reach somewhere 200km away if you drive all day... if that makes sense.
Something that supplies one kilowatt, if left on all day, will supply 24 kilowatt hours.
The writer of the Wiki is either confused or trying to make things sound better than they are, probably the latter. It's like saying your car can drive 200 kilometers per hour in a day, if what is actually the case is that you can reach somewhere 200km away if you drive all day... if that makes sense.
qdada
Expert Member
Zar0.50
gosh that is expensive, where do you live ?
I live in Sunninghill my bill states R0.2748 per kilowatt hour.
it would be quite interesting to find out what various metro charge per kilowatt hour.
kaspaas
Expert Member
A unit of electricity is a kWh.
A solar panel delivering 1 w at less than a US$0.5 - or about ZAR 3.50 is cheap. It will deliver (if the sun is ok) 1 kWh in 1000 hours - which is around 125 days of 8 hours of sunshine.
For R3 500 one could have a kW unit charging your batteries (which would be enourmous!) for the night. 1 kW is more than enough to run your PC, TV, HiFi - all except your heating and cooling devices in a normal middle class household - provided people do some scheduling at peak hours.
A solar panel delivering 1 w at less than a US$0.5 - or about ZAR 3.50 is cheap. It will deliver (if the sun is ok) 1 kWh in 1000 hours - which is around 125 days of 8 hours of sunshine.
For R3 500 one could have a kW unit charging your batteries (which would be enourmous!) for the night. 1 kW is more than enough to run your PC, TV, HiFi - all except your heating and cooling devices in a normal middle class household - provided people do some scheduling at peak hours.
arf9999
MyBroadband Member
It looks like everyone is confused by the claims.
Nanosolar is claiming that you will pay $1 for every Watt that the panel produces. That's a pretty big deal. Thus for $1000 you can get a solar panel array that can produce 1kW. Compared to the current technology in solar panels, where you'd need to pay around US$790 for a 160W panel, or around $5 per Watt.
In addition, the nanosolar panels are thinner, lighter and easier to produce. It looks like the main problem that they have is production capacity.
edit: Just for clarity (kilo)Watt = Power, (kilo)Watt hour = Energy.
Nanosolar is claiming that you will pay $1 for every Watt that the panel produces. That's a pretty big deal. Thus for $1000 you can get a solar panel array that can produce 1kW. Compared to the current technology in solar panels, where you'd need to pay around US$790 for a 160W panel, or around $5 per Watt.
In addition, the nanosolar panels are thinner, lighter and easier to produce. It looks like the main problem that they have is production capacity.
edit: Just for clarity (kilo)Watt = Power, (kilo)Watt hour = Energy.
Last edited:
As a rule-of-thumb each so-called peak-Watt (Wp) of solar panel power can deliver around 3.5 watt-hours of energy per day. This can be more in summer and in certain areas ( e.g. Kalahari desert), but less at say the coast. ( and during bad weather spells!)
Therefore a 40Watt solar panel would supply about 40 x 3.5 = 140 Watt-hours per day.
A 40 Watt nanosolar panel would thus cost about $40 and would be able to produce 140 Watt-hours daily, that's enough to run a laptop for about 2 hours or run 10 energy saver light bulbs for an hour each day. Pretty cost effective considering you'd only pay the $40 once off.
Therefore a 40Watt solar panel would supply about 40 x 3.5 = 140 Watt-hours per day.
A 40 Watt nanosolar panel would thus cost about $40 and would be able to produce 140 Watt-hours daily, that's enough to run a laptop for about 2 hours or run 10 energy saver light bulbs for an hour each day. Pretty cost effective considering you'd only pay the $40 once off.
HavocXphere
Honorary Master
Wow. Amazing stuff.
The important part is the way they are manufactured, not those random kWh and dollar amounts you guys are throwing around:
The magnitude of the breakthrough can be clearly seen on this table.
The important part is the way they are manufactured, not those random kWh and dollar amounts you guys are throwing around:
- No silicon involved.
- Manufacturing cost is about 10% of current panels.
- Printed onto rolls of aluminum.
The magnitude of the breakthrough can be clearly seen on this table.
Highflyer_GP
Honorary Master
Well with the kind of whether we've been having in Jhb, it's hard to tell that it's even summer
